MANSFIELD — Kam Vanderpool knew he had a good opportunity to learn career skills as a 17-year-old student at Pioneer Career and Technology Center.
“At our orientation night, I signed up for precision machining and ended up loving it,” he said. “Even coming from a hands-on background, there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know how to do walking in the door, but other people here knew what they were doing and showed me.”
Vanderpool is an apprentice at Hess Industries where he is working to earn a journeyman’s card in tool and die manufacturing. He is paid to learn the trade at Hess and takes evening classes at North Central State College as part of the program.
Apprentices must work under certified journeyman for at least 8,000 hours and be able to operate a variety of machines, review sketches, create computer designs and inspect products to earn their journeyman’s card.
The apprenticeship is a four-year program that also gives employees the opportunity to earn a mechanical engineering degree if they choose to continue taking classes.
Many of the machines in Hess Industries’ technology center are automated to load and unload materials themselves while employees supervise machines and tend to the finer details of tasks.
Vanderpool said the most important thing he’s learned as a Hess apprentice is how to run all of the machines and watch closely when he’s learning a new skill.
“Being around people who know how to do their job well and understand if you don’t know everything right away is really helpful,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t know this place existed but my lab instructor at Pioneer told us about the opportunities, and I’m happy I’m here.”
Mark Hess, founder and owner of Hess Industries, said the technology center has hosted 12 apprentices since it enrolled in the state-registered program in 2000.
“I would say a journeyman’s card adds as much value or more than a college degree as these students are looking to get ahead in their careers,” Hess said. “This is the type of program where you can become book smart and mechanically smart with zero debt.
“It’s the equivalent of a paid internship with a full-ride scholarship.”
Hess Industries offers job shadows to anyone interested, including high school students with permission from their parents.
“From the beginning, it was really important to me to shape the next generation and give them opportunities to grow,” Hess said. “Taylor Metal Products gave me this opportunity when I was 18 and I’ve never really been able to pay them back, so this is my way of paying it forward.”
Hess said he has retained about half of his apprentices as full-time employees at the company, and other graduates have gone on to further their careers at different manufacturing and technology companies.
In Richland County, state-registered apprenticeships in tool and die fields are offered at Jay Industries, Stoneridge Inc, Breitinger Companies, Newman Technology, Ohio Valley Manufacturing and Hess Industries.
“There’s lots of other manufacturing shops that offer this program, and I think it gives employees the chance to set themselves apart without stepping on other people,” Hess said. “We want more students to look at manufacturing as a good career path that can really set them up for the future.”
Hess Industries’ 24,000 square-foot technology center includes robotic cells programmed by employees, clinch product fastening and 5-axis CNC machines that perform multiple steps in the manufacturing process.
“People don’t realize how technologically advanced a lot of manufacturing is now,” Hess said. “Our employees are learning new skills every day.”
Colt Landis said one of his favorite parts of being a Hess apprentice is learning how to run the CNC machines.
“Just learning how to set everything up and watching it do its thing is pretty cool,” he said.
Landis is learning how to program robotic machines.
“It takes more brain power, but I don’t get bored doing the same thing,” the Crestview and Pioneer alumnus said. “It makes the day go faster.”
Jake Leonhardt, toolmaker and robot technician at Hess, was an apprentice from 2015 to 2019 and now teaches the current apprentices new skills.
Leonhardt said programming robots for basic tasks could take a few hours, while a more complex program could take weeks.
“The machine tending program was pretty complex, I was really proud when it got running,” he said.
With a 14-person staff including Hess and his wife, Leonhardt said all employees and apprentices learn how to do most every job in the shop.
“It’s fulfilling working with your hands and you get to accomplish a lot of things on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “It’s definitely been a good way to support my family.”
Journeyman apprenticeships are offered in a variety of trades across the state including manufacturing, electrical and maintenance work, transportation and nursing. More than 1,300 apprenticeship opportunities can be found at apprentice.ohio.gov.
